Rebuild These Broken Gardens
by With-teeth-of-madness
Summary: After everything that's happened, Rufus is on the edge waiting to fall. One day he goes further to forget than he ever has and finds himself in a world that is just like before but so very different. Tseng/Rufus Rufus/Sephiroth Tseng/Rufus/Sephiroth.


AN: So, it's a really bad idea to start something new, when you already have something else that needs to be written. I am still working on the other fic, but I couldn't resist posting this.

This is inspired, in part, by the Nine Inch Nail song – Hurt. The lyrics to this song can be found throughout the first chapter. They're in italics and separated from the main text so you know who those lines belong to. I really need to stop listening to inspiring music; I really, really do…

I do not take credit for the song lyrics (as mentioned before), any character, event, object or place that you will find here that is in any media from the compilation of Final Fantasy VII. I'm just writing because I need practise, and because it's fun (and because I procrastinate like crazy most of the time.) I am making no profit out of this.

I usually write AN's that are way to long. This one's getting that way already so I'll just say its rated M for a reason. There will be violence, sexual situations (maybe explicit) depression, drugs, drink, among other things.

_Try to kill it all away  
But I remember everything_

--

Sometimes, when the bitter truth of the dark legacy he'd been born into caught up with him, Rufus Shinra, how he _hated_ that name now, would pour himself a drink, and then another, and another.

He'd continue pouring until his painfully logical mind didn't have to think about the abuse he was dealing his body. Until he didn't have to think about what he was doing at all. He'd just pour drinks on autopilot like it was as natural as breathing and staying alive and, most importantly, he _wouldn't_ think about his past and the present.

Only as time grew on it became more difficult. As though his body grew accustomed to alcohol, and the dulling effects faded quicker and took longer to begin. Maybe it was a survival instinct, Rufus thought so. His body was growing stronger against the alcohol, defending itself.

He was sat with a drink now, thinking about things, the drinks effects failing him again. It was times like this that made him want something stronger, a powerful drug to help him lose himself completely.

He laughed bitterly. He never had been a quitter but he sure felt like quitting now. Or maybe he could rephrase it, he wasn't _quitting_, he was striving to achieve a new _goal_ – Death. He was good at convincing people it was in their best interest to do what _he_ wanted. Politicians needed to be convincing after all. Shame he couldn't convince himself.

He knew he didn't disserve to give up, as long as he was alive he was living the pain and serving the penance that he had earned. At least a little, through his personal turmoil, there were those that hated him but none had ever caused him any real pain.

_Everyone I know goes away in the end_

_--_

After everything that had happened with meteor and Sephiroth he'd been able to put things into perspective. Before he felt assured that deep down, despite the selfish nature of his ambitions, he was doing the right thing for everyone. Far more than his farther had ever done. Now though, now he knew and felt more than ever the dreaded nature of things. He'd had time to think things over especially after the death of Tseng.

It wasn't even what happened after the death of his farther and his placement as president that _really_ bothered him; sure he'd fucked things up royally and maybe stopped Avalanche saving the planet as effectively as they might have (although he'd never really know if stopping meteor would have been a lost cause anyway.) but the stuff he did before was worse.

He'd been given his first gun at the age of nine. Most boys his age played football in their spare time; he spent it with the Turks practising his shooting technique. It didn't take long until he had it down to an art.

He killed someone for the first time a few months later, everyone else tried to convince him it was self defence, the boy had punched him in the jaw. He never forgot the look in the boys eyes though, when he pushed the gun up against his head. He'd begged him not to do it, but he hadn't listened…

Tseng had started working for the Turks a few months before his ninth birthday and had told him that if he wasn't the president's son Tseng would have definitely put a good word in for him to his boss.

Because, of course, there was only one occupation that the presidents son would ever fall into, and _fall_ into it he did. You couldn't do that job and remain a innocent, good person.

"_You would have made a good Turk."_ Tseng had said in his smooth voice, with a barely there smile on his lips and the smile had reached his eyes. The only form of affection he'd ever received from the Turk in his childhood. The only _real_ affection he'd ever received back then period.

It didn't take long for his farther to start assigning him roles in the company. When he was thirteen he was put in charge of the scientific department. He didn't have to do much, just read documents and sign the experiments he thought appropriate and good value for money.

Hojo had always had a way of making things seem like they were beyond your comprehension but essential. He'd swallowed a lot of Hojo's crap. Up until the point where he came as essential asset to the company, regardless of how much he hated the man. He never did let him go, never fired him. He got out of the company the way most did in the end – by dying.

He never noticed the twisted experiments the man carried out until it was too late, never cared about the things he'd always known were done to the General. He'd told himself at the time that it was for Sephiroth's own good and Sephiroth was always so composed and unaffected by everything, surely what was being done to him wasn't that _bad_.

He'd never felt sorry for Sephiroth even though he'd been brought up in Shinra, trained to be a merciless war machine and had all sorts of horrid things done to him as a child. He'd always been to busy feeling sorry for himself.

When the time came, he was the one given the paper that detailed the Nibelihiem mission. Even though he knew it had looked suspicious, he signed it and consented to the mission without a second thought.

It was his fault Nibelhiem burnt. His fault his half brother, who even now had no idea of his heritage, lost his mother and his home town to that catastrophe. And later, he'd ordered the Turks to kill them both to cover up what had happened. It was his fault Cloud lost his best, and only real friend in the whole world.

_And you could have it all  
my empire of dirt  
I will let you down  
I will make you hurt_

_--_

And truth be told Rufus wouldn't waste a second in trading everything he'd done, everything he'd had to do, everything he _was,_ with anyone that had the slightest interest in being him.

It was selfish, no one disserved to live like he had and was, but Rufus was selfish. He'd never claimed otherwise. Never said he was charitable.

_I wear this crown of shit  
upon my liar's chair_

_--_

Rufus stood up from his chair and walked over to the window. He gazed out with a drunken, dozy smile.

"It's so much better looking now than when I had _this_." He spat gesturing wildly with his hand. Even though there was no one else in the room with him.

No, because Rufus had lost the only people left in the world. He'd driven Rude and Reno away. Elena had died and Tseng, Tseng was killed. He'd been a complete asshole to Tseng even though he'd never treated him with anything less than reverence and when he thought about it love. Reno had really brought that point home.

"_He fuckin' loved you and you never even gave him the time of day! I mean we were all loyal man, but him… Shit Rufus! He would have followed you to the ends of the Earth if you only asked. He would have died for you, would have lived for you… You could have at least taken the time to appreciate that…"_

Reno was only a year younger than himself and he realised now that if things had been different they might have been friends. Now Reno hated him.

He gripped the bottle of vodka in his hands. He'd used to be picky about what he drank but now it was the strongest thing he could get his hands on quickly.

There was a loud crash as he smashed it against the window. He pushed the shards into the window, trying to break that glass too, but it was to strong for that. All he did was imbed the shards deeper into his palm.

"For fucks sake!" He roared.

He stormed out of his living room where he'd been sitting by the bar and threw open the door to his bedroom.

It took him seconds to find the syringe lying by the bed. He'd brought it all a while ago just in case. Now seemed like a good idea to use it.

_I focus on the pain  
the only thing that's real_

_--_

He pushed it into his arm filling his veins with the heroine inside. At least he thought it was heroine, the man had said it was but you could never trust a dealer. Still, the price he paid for it…

"This better be some good shit…"

And that was the last coherent thought he had, before he slipped away and the visions of things that might have been, and things that didn't seem like things at all, took over.

_--_

AN: Please review, this was a bit of a spur of the moment thing, so if it's bad tell me. I'll probably re-write it later anyway. I know it's only the beginning and doesn't really explain much of the story at the moment, but the next part (chapter one) will move things a long a _lot_. I should have that up pretty soon. Need to work on chapter three of my other fic though. I'm thinking I might have to start making smaller chapters.


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